


Forever

by Bunny7033



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Flashbacks, M/M, Tickling, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-15
Updated: 2014-06-15
Packaged: 2018-02-04 19:29:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1790557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bunny7033/pseuds/Bunny7033
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where everyone has predetermined soulmates, Sam just wants his best friend Gabriel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forever

**Author's Note:**

> AU - Soulmates where on your twenty-first birthday you see your soulmate in the mirror.

_The little kindergartener ran up to Gabriel, breathless with excitement. “Gabe, look what I made!” he exclaimed, excited as could be. Clutched tightly in his sweaty palm was a piece of red construction paper, folded in half. A sloppy kitten was drawn on the front, its head indistinguishable from its body, with two tails and only one big, pointy, bright-blue ear. “It says, ‘I love you more than tuna,’” the boy giggled, opening up to the inside of the card. “Get it? Because cats love tuna!” Suddenly shy, he held out the card, a tiny Valentine’s day offering. “It’s for you.”_

_Gabriel grinned. “Thanks Sammy. I love it!”_

***

Sam stared down at the framed picture of his parents, a soft smile on his face. They were two of the lucky ones - he had heard the story before. Born two months apart, they grew up together in the same small town of Lawrence. High school sweethearts who never became serious - how could they, when they both knew that they would someday find their soulmates - they parted amicably when Mary went off to college, while John stayed in Kansas to start an auto shop. Everything changed when, on John’s twenty-first birthday, he looked in the mirror and saw Mary’s face staring back at him. Sam had sat on his father’s knee many times, listening to him tell how he had waited two long, endless months to drive up to Mary’s apartment on her own birthday. Having just seen his face in the mirror herself, she jumped into his arms and they got married, had children, lived happily ever after… blah blah blah.

Not everyone was destined to get such a perfect ending, Sam thought wryly as he placed the photograph carefully back down on his dresser. When he was younger he had dreamed about his own soulmate, as all children did. Now, he viewed his twenty-first birthday - still a considerable four years away - with mixed feelings. Rather than dwell on the future, he tried to think about his future soulmate as little as possible.

Most of the time it seemed he was too in love with Gabriel to even care about his someday-soulmate, anyway.

***

_Sam shrieked as Gabriel pushed him into the pool. Propelling his way to the surface, the seven-year-old spit out a mouthful of chlorinated water and shouted, “It’s cold.”_

_“‘Course it’s cold, kiddo,” Gabe retorted. “It’s hot outside, swimming wouldn’t be any fun if the water was warm too.” Sam stuck out his tongue._

_“I knew that,” he insisted. “And don’t call me kiddo. You’re not even a teenager yet!” He ducked under and floated, falling further and further until he was close enough to the bottom to use the floor of the pool as a jumping-board. He bent his knees and pushed, popping back up into the waterless air with a splash. “You’re coming in, right Gabe?” he gasped. Gabriel grinned, then took a running start._

_“Cannonball!”_

***

Gabriel flopped down on Sam’s dorm room bed and gazed up at the ceiling, beautiful as ever with his eyes crinkled at the corners and his mouth curled up into a joyful smile. “Two more days, Sammy! It’s normal to be nervous, right? Who am I kidding, I’ll be finding out who I’m supposed to spend the rest of my life with, of course I can be nervous! Don’tcha think, Sam?” He glanced over. “Sam?”

Sam could only nod tightly, unable to muster more than the tiniest of smiles in the face of Gabriel’s happiness. Gabe gave him an upside-down grin that made Sam’s heart tighten painfully in his chest. “You’re just jealous that I get to find out who my soulmate is before you do.” He flipped onto his stomach and stared into Sam’s eyes. “Don’t worry Sammitch,” he said, with all the wisdom of a Jedi master. “You too will find your other half.”

“Shut up,” Sam muttered, tossing a pillow at Gabriel. “But, I mean - don’t you ever wish that soulmates didn’t exist?” More than once he himself had wondered over the point of soulmates. While he could see how it would be wonderful to have someone who was meant for you and you alone, what if they lived in Alaska, Russia, Kenya, Tibet? What if you spoke different languages? What if you saw them in the mirror and then forgot what they looked like? What if you had allergies, and they made a living growing peanuts? What if you were never able to track them down them and spent the rest of your life knowing that you lost the chance of finding the only person who could complete you like the one missing part to a thousand-piece puzzle.

What if you loved someone else, but knew that you could never be with them - after all, they had their own soulmate, and you had yours. What then?

Gabe frowned and gave him a shrug. “Not really. I mean, it sure makes love lives easier. You never have to worry about being alone, because you know that there’s someone out there.”

“But what if you never find them?” Sam pushed. “Maybe my soulmate was a soldier in the South Sudanese Civil War, and I’ll never find him because he died. Love life ruined.”

“Wow, Sam,” Gabriel said in a deadpan. “I truly admire your optimism. Would it kill you to lighten up? You don’t know who your soulmate is going to be, that’s the whole point. Maybe it’ll be a dead Sudanese soldier, or maybe it’ll be Jessica Moore.” Sam snorted.

“I don’t want Jess to be my soulmate, I want-” _You._

Gabe smiled at him, a genuine smile without any layers or falseness or snark, and it took Sam’s breath away. “You just gotta have faith, Sammitch.”

Right, because that would help.

***

_“What if I can’t make any friends?” Sam worried. “What if the work is too hard? What if I get lost on my way to classes? Gabe, I don’t want to go to high scho-” He was cut off as Gabriel pounced on top of him, pinning to the ground._

_“You are such a freaking pessimist, Sammykins,” he said, digging his fingers into Sam’s sides. As Sam screeched with laughter, he grinned and continued, “You need a little more joy in your life!”_

_“Gahahahabe!” Sam exclaimed, squirming helplessly as wiggling fingers danced over his stomach. “Stohohohop! Plehehehease, I prohohomise I won’t complahahain anymohohore!”_

_Gabriel smiled wider and released Sam; then he pulled the younger teen into an unexpected - but nowhere near unwelcome - hug. “Don’t worry so much, Sam,” Gabe said, ruffling his shaggy mop of hair. “It’ll all be fine, you’ll see. ‘Sides, I’ll be right there with you. We can sit together at lunch.”_

***

On the morning of the fifteenth, Sam picked up his cell phone and dialed Gabe’s number. He sat staring at it, desperately wondering, hoping, wishing that when Gabriel picked up he would say, “It’s you, Sam, it’s always been you.”

He pressed call.

No one answered.

***

_“You know what sucks?” Sam muttered. “Econ. Econ sucks. This has got to be the hardest class I’ve ever taken, and if I can’t get at least an eighty on this midterm I am definitely going to fail.”_

_Gabe sat down on the other side of the table and handed Sam a steaming Starbucks cup. Sam took it gratefully, though after the first sip he wrinkled his nose and asked, “Is this hot chocolate?”_

_“To sweeten up your evening,” Gabriel said with a wink._

***

He called Gabe the next day, and the day after, and the one following that. Five calls turned to ten, which turned to fifteen, which turned to twenty, and when each one went straight to voicemail Sam couldn’t help but wonder if Gabriel was already in India, searching for his other half.

***

_Squished together on the small bed, Sam closed his eyes as Gabriel said, “Think of how cool it would be to have a soulmate who lives across the world, at a weather station in Antarctica or in a rainforest in Brazil. Just finding them would be an adventure.” He leaned across Sam’s body and flipped off the light, covering them both in darkness._

_But then, it never was about adventure, was it. Sam didn’t want exciting, thrilling, perilous exploits through the jungles of Peru. He wanted simplicity. He wanted every day. He wanted walks through the park, flying kites at the beach, messy bedhead and shared sneakers worn through to the soles and playing the penis game until they got kicked out of WalMart. He wanted a long espresso with a spoonful of sugar and a dollop of steamed milk in the morning, sticky macaroni and cheese on Friday nights, chai tea when Gabriel caught pinkeye every summer like clockwork. It was the little things, he realized, that made love into something so special._

_“I wish we didn’t have to wait until our twenty-first birthdays to find our soulmates,” Sam whispered. In the pitch-black room Gabe pulled him closer, content to be the big spoon despite his smaller stature - one of the many things about him that Sam absolutely adored._

_In an even quieter tone, he voiced a fear; “When we both have our soulmates, we won’t spend as much time together anymore.”_

_Gabriel snuggled closer, burying his face in the long hair at the nape of Sam’s neck. “You’ll always be my best friend Sam,” he muttered sleepily, “even when we’ve found our soulmates. Now would you go to sleep already?”_

_Sam sighed._

***

When Sam trudged over to Gabriel’s apartment - perhaps to ask his roommates Michael and Crowley when Gabe had left - he was taken aback when a painfully familiar face answered the door instead.

“What are you doing here?” Sam blurted out. Gabe stared at him stonily, mouth pressed shut in a firm line. “Why the hell haven’t you been answering my calls?”

He waited - and waited, and waited some more as Gabriel remained silent, still glaring at Sam as though he were the cause of global warming. “Did you find your soulmate?” Sam eventually asked, softly, wondering who it might have been and hating them more than a little. “Are they here?” A worrying thought occurred to him, and he stumbled over his words in his haste to get them out. “Did - you did find them, right? Gabe, who is it, at least tell-”

“You.”

Sam stared uncomprehendingly, sure that he must not have heard right. “What?”

“It’s you, Sam,” Gabriel bit out, eyes cold and resentful.

Sam could’ve sworn his heart stopped.

“And isn’t that just great?” Gabriel continued bitterly. “I’ve been in love with you since you gave me that fucking kitten valentine in third grade, and I honestly thought that once I found my soulmate I’d finally be able to get over you. I mean, is it even possible that you could ever think of me like-” He broke off with a soft moan as Sam’s mouth swooped down to meet his own in a needy kiss that left them both breathless.

“Oh,” Gabe murmured against Sam’s lips. “Oh. I guess that settles that, then.”

***

_“Gabe!” Sam sprinted over to the ten-year-old, arms flapping wildly as he ran. “I got you this from the gum-machine!” He held out a thin, child-sized ring, its cheap metal painted over with bright rainbow colors. “Dean said it’s a wedding ring, so I asked Momma and she said that it’s okay if we get married.”_

_Gabriel laughed. “She did?”_

_“Yeah!” Sam grinned up at him, gap-toothed and baby-faced. “Do you wanna marry me?”_

_“Wouldn’t want to marry anyone else,” Gabriel replied, placing the ring on his thumb - the only finger big enough to fit - and reaching down to link their hands together._


End file.
